Favorite Characters: Nikita Mears (Nikita)

Aaaand we might as well round off the set.  There’s a definite possibility of other Nikita-related posts in the future, but this is, I think, the last immediate entry in my must-write-about list.  Oh, Nikita, how much do you rock?  Let me count the ways.  (Usual Nikita spoilers warning applies.)

Like other characters I’ve loved and reviewed from this show, Nikita is a superb mix of fine assets and honest flaws.  She’s an action heroine, a smart cookie, a BAMF surrogate mother, a hard-decision maker, and a lost soul who’s scraped together some restitution for her past sins.  She’s one of those lucky people who need people, although she doesn’t always realize that and sometimes actively fights against it.  Where redemption is concerned, she puts her money where her mouth is, but at the same time, she often dances on the knife edge between light and darkness.  Most of all, she’s a woman who gets things done; she drives the story forward, and any time the plot tries to dictate her movements, she makes it clear she knows how to push back.

Nikita and Alex are both unique in that they’re female protagonists with pretty morally-murky origins.  Nikita came to Division as a drug addict and a cop-killer (committed under the influence, but still,) and before leaving it, she rose to become one of its top assets.  She killed for them spectacularly and without complaint.  When she does break from Division, her chief aim vacillates between justice and revenge.  She no longer turns a blind eye to Division’s crimes, and she seeks to put a stop to it, while simultaneously trying to atone for the unconscionable acts she did at its biddings, but she’s more than just a crusader.  She’s also a devastatingly wronged party looking to twist the knife – Division killed her fiancé, largely to display their power over her, and this lends a disquieting aspect to her mission.  She wants them to feel every particle of her rage and pain over Daniel’s death, and she wants them to pay for it, pound for pound, in flesh.

This dichotomy informs much of Nikita’s story.  She wants to thwart Division’s nefarious plans and save innocents, whether they’re directly in Division’s crosshairs or mere collateral damage.  However, her desire to see Division break and suffer as it falls sometimes gets in the way of her nobler intentions, and these two drives within her wrestle for pride of place among her motivations.  As such, she is never all good or all bad.  In her efforts to disrupt Division’s villainy, she kills agents who were abducted, blackmailed, and conditioned by Division just as she was.  When she has the means to end the life of one of her enemies, her hand is sometimes stayed by mercy, hope for the better angels of their nature, or a simple desire to end the violence.  It’s strong, thoughtful, character-driven storytelling that women get too rarely on television.

One of my favorite things about Nikita is her slow, gradual admission that she needs a family.  At first, she rebuffs anyone who wants to help her in her mission; Alex only makes the cut due to her sheer determination.  And even after Nikita lets in Alex, then Michael, then Birkhoff, and so forth, she’s prone to go off on her own, to insist she doesn’t need back-up in the field, or to spare others from doing what she thinks she has to do alone.  Her loved ones hate it when she does this, and rightly so, because they’re all highly capable adults who can make their own decisions, but really, when she pulls away on this end of the equation, it only expresses how much she needs them.  Whether she’s misguidedly keeping them at arm’s length to protect them from danger or drawing a curtain over her own darkness so they won’t see, it’s her way of saying how much she loves them. 

Relationship Spotlight: Alex Udinov & Nikita Mears (Nikita)

Yep, more Nikita!  This time, we’re hearing it for the girls; the wonderfully complex relationship between Nikita and Alex was one of the first things that hooked me about the show.  As with most Nikita-related things, massive spoilers to follow.

There are a lot of layers to Nikita-Alex, so I’ll try to unpack them one at a time.  The most obvious is the mentor/mentee angle, with Nikita initially training and prepping Alex to infiltrate Division and then guiding her through life on the inside.  She helps Alex to be strong – physically, mentally, and emotionally – and Alex proves herself time and again to be a worthy apprentice, working as Nikita’s mole within Division.  Many of the significant ties between these two begin here.  Alex often idealizes Nikita’s skills and strategies and wants to emulate her/do right by her, and Nikita is proud of Alex’s growing proficiency.

As the connection between them deepens, we see a more personal mother/daughter bond develop; Nikita especially looks out for Alex’s well-being.  As much as she respects Alex’s abilities, there’s a sense of wanting to keep Alex close to the nest and protect her.  This means physical danger, of course, but Nikita watches out for Alex in other ways, too.  A former addict herself, Nikita is the one who first helps Alex get clean, and when Alex is deep inside the belly of the Division beast, Nikita does whatever she can to spare Alex from having to go down the same dark paths that Nikita once did.  Alex, meanwhile, understands on one level that Nikita is trying to look out for her, but at the same time, she wants to prove to Nikita than she can stand on her own and doesn’t need protecting.

As time goes by, this dynamic never disappears, but it does soften as Alex matures as an operative.  Their relationship becomes one of slightly more equal footing, with Alex recognizing that Nikita isn’t perfect and Nikita more often trusting Alex to handle herself.  In this way, we’re able to see them as friends and comrades.  Both Nikita and Alex are understandably closed-off and guarded due to their past experiences, but they can open up to one another and provide support.  They can be vulnerable with one another, admitting to fears or confusion and seeking the other’s advice.  They work well in the field together and regularly have each other’s backs. 

None of this means that things always copasetic between them.  Both women come into the relationship with enormous amounts of baggage, some of it mutual, and it causes major rifts between them at different times.  Nikita’s tendencies toward keeping secrets, making decisions for other people “for their own good,” and only listening to outside input on her own terms get her in trouble with most of the cast at some point or another, and the conflicts born out of these issues are usually the most substantial with Alex.  I imagine it’s because these two are both the strongest-willed characters on the show as well as the most damaged.  As Alex gains confidence in her own instincts, she becomes less likely to be dictated to, so her stubbornness clashes with Nikita’s.  And because both have been through so much, every relationship they have is incredibly hard-earned, and any divide between them is sorely felt.  They need one another, a lot, and even though their relationship takes a number of hits along the way, they always return to each other with a greater understanding for the other’s needs and considerations.

Relationship Spotlight: Seymour Birkhoff & Nikita Mears (Nikita)

I knew I’d like Nikita’s relationship with Birkhoff as far back as the pilot.  When she abducts him for mission-related reasons, I love that he still calls her “Niki.”  True, Birkhoff is a bit of a nicknamer in general – he often calls Michael “Mikey” – but “Niki” has such a ring of endearment to it.  Although they’re on opposing sides at the time, there’s clearly affection between them.  They don’t have much screentime together in season 1, since Nikita’s war against Division mostly happens during field operations and Birkhoff doesn’t get topside often, but the interactions they do have are stuffed with potential that more than pays off later.  (Since Nikita’s arcs are so dynamic, any discussion of a series-long element comes with spoilers.)

At the outset, it’s clear that neither wants any real harm to come to the other, despite the fact that they’re technically enemies.  Birkhoff doesn’t hide his admiration for Nikita’s skills when she foils Division operations, and whenever he comes into direct contact with her, she usually lets him off (relatively) unscathed.  The really good stuff, however, doesn’t start until Birkhoff joins the resistance in season 2, so I’ll skip ahead.

It’s an interesting, opposites-attract sort of friendship.  Nikita’s all action and lethal efficiency, driven by a need for justice.  She wrestles frequently with her demons, and the years she regrets are never far from the surface.  Birkhoff, on the other hand, is essential to most operations but usually avoids the fray, preferring to stay behind his computer.  He doesn’t have many moral qualms, and when it comes to his motivations, self-preservation, personal gain, and a strong sense of superiority are major players.  Even his decision to join Nikita and Michael is as much about 1) saving his own skin, 2) boredom, and 3) sticking it to Division, as it is anything nobler.  He’s not a crusader like Nikita – he starts doing good long before he starts being good, if that makes sense, and this gives Nikita plenty of reasons to clash with him, to bolster him when he’s skittish about the risks, and to smack some priorities into him when he’s too opportunistic.

Lest we make Nikita the saint to Birkhoff’s sinner, I should note that theirs is definitely a two-way street.  Nikita’s flaws are numerous, and Birkhoff doesn’t keep quiet when he feels she’s in the wrong (which she sometimes is.)  She can be reckless, obsessive, and stubborn, and she tends to shut people out.  Birkhoff’s not the only person who confronts her on these fronts, but he’s usually the most effective.  With Michael and Alex, the ties are too deep, too complicated, and it’s easy for emotions to run too high on both sides.  Birkhoff, though, can reach her.  I’d love know what their relationship was like before Nikita escaped Division, because they both know and understand each other remarkably well.  I wonder how they got that way.

Much of the time, they have a bit of a big sister-kid brother dynamic.  They squabble, they hang out, and they rib each other – it’s a lot of fun, and a nice chance for Nikita to unwind a little.  As I said, however, this also allows for more serious interactions – honest arguments, sympathetic advice, and shared personal moments.  I love that, when Nikita gets back in touch with the group after going off on her own at the end of season 3, Birkhoff has it out with her over the comms, emphasizing that he has just as much right as Michael to be upset about her leaving.  And, when things get intense, you see just how much they mean to one another.  Nikita first beats herself up and then goes on the warpath when her actions lead to Birkhoff being endangered, and though he doesn’t always see eye to eye with her, there’s no question he’d follow her into hell.